Blessed regardless of my circumstances

This has been one of those weeks where I have been having a little personal pity party over some things that have been going on in my life. The good thing is that I know my self worth is not measured by my accomplishments, good traits, bad traits, life stages or anything in between. My self worth lies in the fact that I was fearfully and wonderfully made by my heavenly father and was made in His image. I was created to be a light on this earth and walk around on my two feet, day in and day out living out my life to show God's glory here on this earth. One thing I know for sure is that I was not put on this earth to be bitter and entitled. I want the life that God has predestined for me since the beginning of time. I want to stand at the gates of heaven and hear, "Well done my good and faithful servant" and what I want more than that is for as many others as possible to stand with me at that gate and hear that same thing, because I allowed God to do a work through me and brought others to him!!

I am so blessed to have the life I have. Its overwhelming at times that I have been given so much. I know that "to those who are given much, much is expected", and I pray that I will never get in the way of what God expects from me because of my own silly emotions and occasional pity parties. Plus pity parties suck and are depressing! No thanks!!!

We sang this at church this morning. God speaks to me daily through songs. He must know how my brain works and how I retain scripture. He spoke to me today through this song.

Every blessing you pour out I turn back to praise. When the darkness closes in Lord, still I will say, blessed be the name of the lord, blessed be your name Jesus. Blessed me the name of the lord, blessed be your glorious name!! He gives and takes away, He gives and takes away.
My heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be your name!

He has given me much and has taken little. My heart will CHOOSE to say blessed be your name Jesus until I am standing you in heaven one day!! :)

Boston!

Boston is:

Chowder eating.....

Monument hiking....whew....

Statue looking.....

Pizza sharing....

Window Shopping........

Canolli eating....

new culture exploring......

Baseball watching......

scenery loving......

musket shooting learning......

knowledge gaining....

food smelling....

lots of walking.....

hot dog eating.....

American history touring.....

Italian food eating......

bed and breakfasting"ing"......

Whale watching.....

Witch hunting in Salem......

Dunkin Donut eating......

&

MUCH MORE!!

Boston is AWESOME. It is so clean and beautiful. Filled with history, great food, you can get everywhere on foot or on a subway, and it has endless things to do. We had such a wonderful time learning all about the history of the town, eating lots and lots in the "North End" which is like a little Italy, going to Chinatown, whale watching, and going to Fernway to watch Texas kill the Red Sox. We stayed in the most beautiful bed and breakfast and filled every second of our trip with fun!! I would recommend Boston to anyone who is looking for a fun, interesting, relaxing, exciting vacation!

Vacay, must read book and precious little Sophie Tate!

Lance & I leave for Boston soon and I am so excited!! A little break from the 110 degree weather, and the never ending mental and physical "work" that comes with my job will be SO nice!! We have actually never been on a trip with just the two of us before and I can't wait.

So far we have lots of fun things lined up. We will be driving to a little town outside Boston to go whale watching, going to a Rangers game at Fenway, doing the Freedom Trail, touring some of the old historic neighborhoods, and lots more fun stuff!! I have been an extreme nerd and have researched all the stuff we will be doing and then made Lance listen to me read about all of it. We wouldn't want to show up somewhere and not know the history! hehe! :) I was a little worried that Boston would be under water by now but I think we are in the clear!

I am going on an electronic hiatus and turning off my phone for the entire week! I don't want to risk seeing an email from work and then worrying about having to deal with anything, plus I just want to remember how it feels to not be connected 24/7 and just worry about hanging out with my hubby and enjoying our vacation together!!

When we get home we will be getting very close to the big move! We have a wedding or something almost every weekend in Sept. so the move is going to be here before we know it. I can't believe we will be living in Sugar Land in a few months. It still kind of makes me chuckle to myself. :)

On a different note I am reading a book called RADICAL by David Platt and it is a MUST READ!! I will post more on how that book has completely moved me and made me really re-evaluate some of the commands given to us in the Bible! It is awesome. I read some of it out loud to Lance all the way to the woodlands today b/c I just couldn't keep it to myself. On that note, we were driving to the Woodlands to meet Jamie & Jay's (Jamie is my cousin) little baby Sophie Tate Blackburn. She is adorable. So dainty and girly! I held her for hours while she cuddled on my shoulder. She is just soooo sweet!! Enjoy a pic of this little angel!!

I hope everyone had a great weekend and has a wonderful week! :)

We got a house!

We found out yesterday that will officially be home owners on Sept. 30th!! Yipee!! Isn't it cute!? We are really excited about this new little venture. We will be doing lots of painting and a few big projects and I can't wait to get in there and get started. I walked around home depot today for an hour and realized I have no idea how to make sure your floors match your cabinets and your counter tops match your walls etc. etc. But I'm sure I will figure it out with a little help from my "decorative" friends! :) I will post inside pics when we are officially the owners!!

Wish me luck on the commute. We will be moving to Sugar Land and I work about 30 miles from the house. That part is a bit depressing but I think it will be worth the little drive!

Home buying...stressful or exciting??

So, I guess Lance and I are grown ups now b/c we are actually looking at buying a house soon! I never thought I would move to Sugar Land unless I could get a home in "Old Sugar Land" (aka-the first neighborhood in Sugar Land, streets of charming little houses, huge trees, elementary school on the street, all built in the early 1900's) and sure enough one came up for sale!! Lance and I have both seen the house but have unfortunately never been able to go at the same time due to our crazy, clashing work schedules. BUT I am going one final time tomorrow and we are hopefully going to sign a contract and see if it is meant to be for us to live there. I am hoping so b/c I love the house, however when we decided tonight that we wanted to go ahead and put an offer on the house I almost threw up! It's scary to think of all the things that could go wrong in a house this old, and although it has been updated like crazy, I have grown accustomed to being able to call the apartment complex and have them fix any problem we may have free of charge. But I must say, I have definitely fantasized about walking my kids to their first day of kindergarten from that house! SO we shall see......wish us luck! :)

Back to reality.

Tomorrow I go back to work. A little worried b/c I went to Kroger today and got so fatigued and winded that I thought I may have to take a little nap by the water misting on the lettuce and broccoli! I feel much better as far as pain goes but am still definitely not 100% myself. But, I'm sure it will all only get better.

Good bye movies, ice-cream, angry birds, and never ending episodes of "Friends". You have been so good to me the past seven days!

Wish me luck tomorrow as I get back into my routine of busy busy busy. I know everyone is busy, but it's just so hard to mentally switch gears when I have been laying low for a week.

Not much else going on around here.

Happy almost Wednesday! :)

Sitting on the couch, eating milk duds.

Yep, the name of this post sums up my week so far. But yes, there is a reason for all the sitting and eating! :)

For several months now my doctor has been suspecting that I have a condition called "endometriosis" which probably lots of people know about because it really seems to be extremely common right now. In a nutshell, it is a condition where tissue that is supposed to be in one place in the body is growing somewhere else. Since this tissue is not where it is supposed to be it causes lots of problems including stomach pain, backaches, infertility.....you name it. The tricky thing about this disease is that the only way it can be diagnosed is by surgery. Bethany found out that she had it last year and had it removed. My doctor said that based on my symptoms and the fact that I had an identical twin with the disease, that he would guess I had about a 90% chance of having it as well. I was not buying it and actually deferred surgery twice. Probably not the smartest decision I have ever made. However, after being sick and tired of the chronic pain I was beginning to be in, I decided to just do it!

I went in for the surgery Wednesday morning and prayed a specific prayer for a very smooth morning, where everything happened on time, and that I would have a supernatural sense of peace throughout the whole thing. God was SOOOO incredibly present the entire time and answered every specific prayer that I prayed. We got there at 6:30am, paperwork done by 7, IV in my hand by 7:30 and "byebye" Kayla by 8am on the dot. I never felt and ounce of nerves, and was actually enjoying the morning talking with all the doctors and nurses. They let Lance sit with me throughout the IV and talking with the anesthesiologist etc. etc. and it was just not bad at all. Before I knew it I was in recovery with my sweet husband standing over me with my water. Side note- Lance is SOOO sweet. I told him that I wanted my own drink when I woke up and that I would really like to not have to wait on something to drink since I had been warned by Betho that you are dying of thirst when you get up and that it sometimes takes a while for them to get to you. I had to smile when the first thing I saw was Lance hovering over me, with my personal cup in hand filled to the brim with ice water. Thanks L! :)

Once I came to a bit more I learned that I did in fact have endometriosis and that they were able to remove it all! It was only stage 1 and my doctor said there was no scarring and that I had a "best case scenario" situation! Such a blessing! I am looking forward to no more cramps & stomach aches, not to mention the best thing of all, our chances of having a baby now are greatly improved. We were told before that we were technically "infertile". Although, I knew in my heart that I was not "infertile" it is still never something fun to hear and is a word that stings a little bit more every time you hear it! I hope to be done hearing that word forever. :)

So, now I am just recovering. It has actually been kind of fun. I don't have to worry about working, cleaning, cooking or anything. I am in some pain but it is not nearly what I thought it would be! It is still hard to stand up straight and my throat has been sore from the tube they had to put in for me to breath during the procedure, but all in all it has been ok! I have spent some fun time with my mom & dad, with one of my best friends who came over yesterday to stay with me when Lance went back to work and with Lance. Only being expected to sit on the couch and eat is pretty easy if you ask me! :)

Once again, I am overcome with how blessed I am with this life that I have!

"Before" being wheeled away! A little visitor we had the over the night before. Have you ever seen a cuter yawn?! I didn't think so.